Presenter View in Keynote

Since I spend a large part of my professional life creating and delivering presentations I need be to intimately familiar with the slideware application I use. My software of choice is Apple’s Keynote which is part of the iWork suite.

My presentations are self contained in terms of any notes I make require being stored within my presentation in the Presenter Notes section of the file. To take full advantage of this I use the Presenter Display options to show a specific range of presenter tools on my secondary monitor in the precise configuration I prefer.

Keynote provides an amazingly detailed level of control over the Presenter Display options, as follows:

Accessing the Presenter Display Preferences

Select Preferences… from the Keynote menu (1) to display the Keynote Preferences

The Presenter Display Preferences

Enabling the Alternate Display

In order to enable the Alternate Display place a tick in the ‘Alternate Display’ check box (1)

Configuring the Presenter Display Options

Once enabled, the Alternate Display options can be configured via the check boxes in the ‘Show’ section of the Presenter Display Preferences (1).

The check boxes act as toggles for each element enabling and disabling the option as required.

While this gives a certain level of control over what is displayed the options do not allow the elements of the Alternate Display to be more finely controlled. Fine control is achieved via the Customize Presenter Display… option (2).

Customize Layout

Clicking the Customize Presenter Display displays the Customize Layout screen on the alternate display. This view provides complete control over the layout of your Presenter Display.

The Heads Up Display (HUD) (1) allows elements to be enabled and disabled. The enabled elements (2), (3), (4) and (5) can be moved to any position on the screen and resized as required.

My Preferred Configuration

My preferred configuration is very different from the default.

For example, I choose not to display the current slide in Presenter View as it’s displayed on the main screen anyway and since I don’t use bullet points I have no need to read the content of the slide to the audience!

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